Sept. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Kweku Adoboli’s co-workers knew he
was making fictitious trades, the former UBS AG banker told an
attorney who interviewed him on the night of his arrest in
September 2011.

Adoboli told Damien Byrne Hill, a lawyer at Herbert Smith
LLP who represented the Swiss bank, that his colleagues on the
exchange-traded funds desk were aware of fake trades from May,
though they didn’t know the extent of his positions.

Hill’s notes from the discussion with Adoboli, read out by
a prosecutor at the former trader’s fraud trial in London
yesterday, indicated that while his colleagues were “unhappy”
about the trades, they didn’t alert managers.

“I f----d up,” Adoboli said he told the other traders,
according to the lawyer’s notes. “I’m trying to make it a bit
better.”

Adoboli, 32, has pleaded not guilty to charges of fraud and
false accounting over unauthorized trades on which UBS lost $2.3
billion. The former trader admitted hours before his arrest that
he risked $5 billion on Standard & Poor’s 500 futures and a
further $3.75 billion in the German futures market, a former
manager testified.

Hill’s notes indicated Adoboli admitted building up
positions of as much as $10 billion by August 2011 and masking
them with fictitious ETF trades. When other traders noticed he
was stressed, Adoboli told them it was a result of splitting up
with his girlfriend, according to Hill’s notes.

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News

Rothschild’s Bumi Probes ‘Irregularities’ at Bakrie Company

Bumi Plc, the London-listed Indonesian coal venture founded
by Nathaniel Rothschild, began a probe into alleged
irregularities at associated companies in the Asian country,
prompting a record drop in the shares.

Macfarlanes LLP, a London-based firm, has been appointed to
handle the independent probe, which is likely to take weeks, a
person familiar with the investigation said. An official at the
firm declined to comment.

The stock has lost almost half its value in the past five
days, or about $556 million. “An independent investigation has
been commissioned to investigate the allegations on an urgent
basis, and is to report to the board,” Bumi said in a
statement. Jakarta-based PT Bumi Resources, 29 percent-owned by
Bumi Plc, said it was unaware of the investigation.

The probe is the latest development in a dispute involving
Rothschild and the Bakries, the Indonesian palm-oil-to-property
family empire founded in 1942. Rothschild, 41, and Indra Bakrie
were behind a $3 billion Indonesian coal deal in 2010 that
resulted in Rothschild’s Vallar Plc venture being renamed Bumi.

“Its assets are good, but the question is in how it
manages the company and its debt,” said Akbar Syarief, a fund
manager overseeing about $323 million in assets at PT MNC Asset
Management in Jakarta. “There’s the tricky part. It’s a
question about good corporate governance.”

Relations between Rothschild and co-chairman Bakrie frayed
in November after the U.K. investor, the son of financier Jacob
Rothschild, made public a letter to then-Bumi Plc Chief
Executive Officer Ari Hudaya detailing his concerns. He called
for a “radical cleaning up” of Bumi Resources and a timetable
for the “repatriation of funds deposited with connected
parties.”

Hudaya resigned Sept. 24 from Bumi’s board, the company
said in a separate statement. The 53-year-old was CEO until
March this year and is president director of Bumi Resources.

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Firm News

K&L Gates LLP Management Committee Re-Elects Kalis as Head

Peter J. Kalis was elected to a fifth consecutive term by
K&L Gates LLP’s management committee, as chairman and global
managing partner. Kalis, who has held the title since 1997, will
extend his leadership in that role through February 2017.

The management committee has 60 voting members, who
represent the firm’s offices and major practice disciplines.

When Kalis first came to the helm in 1997, the firm was
known as Kirkpatrick & Lockhart and was a regional firm with six
offices in the eastern U.S. The firm now has almost 2,000
lawyers in 41 offices on four continents.

During his tenure, Kalis has overseen eight mergers,
boosting the firm in lawyer headcount rankings among U.S.-based
firms, and led the firm to increased revenues. Last year was the
firm’s third consecutive one with earnings above the billion-dollar mark, the firm said in a statement.

“Pete’s leadership and clear-sightedness to align us with
the global economy positioned the Asia offices to thrive during
the financial crisis, and his continued service will allow us
all to take the next leap forward,” David K.Y. Tang, K&L
Gates’s managing partner, Asia, said in a statement.

K&L Gates has more than 40 offices in North America,
Europe, Asia, South America and the Middle East.

Michael Heller Voted Cozen O’Connor Chief Executive Officer

Cozen O’Connor’s board of directors yesterday elected
Michael J. Heller as president and chief executive officer,
beginning Jan. 1. Heller is currently the firm’s president and
executive partner.

The current CEO, Thomas A. Decker, will become vice
chairman of the firm and will also be actively involved in Cozen
O’Connor public strategies, an ancillary business that provides
government-relations services. Vincent R. McGuinness Jr. will
continue in his role as the firm’s managing partner.

The changes follow the firm’s strategic plan, developed and
announced last October, the firm said.

Heller, whose practice includes representation of venture
capital, private-equity funds and emerging-growth companies,
joined Cozen O’Connor in 1996 from WolfBlock LLP. He worked to
recruit former co-workers and in 2009, 65 attorneys from
WolfBlock joined Cozen O’Connor in practice areas including
intellectual property, corporate and securities, real estate,
trusts and estates and government relations, the firm said.

In his previous management roles, Heller helped expand the
firm, particularly with the hiring of IP lawyers, including a
group of 19 hired in 2011 from New York boutique firm Cohen
Pontani Lieberman & Pavane LLP.

Also last year, the firm acquired a 14-lawyer group in
Houston from Epstein Becker Green Wickliff & Hall PC with
practices in the areas of labor and employment, energy and
litigation, the firm said.

“Our goal in growing the firm has been to build upon Cozen
O’Connor’s strengths in insurance law and litigation, while
expanding our business practices to provide full-service
capabilities for our clients,” Heller said in a statement.

Cozen O’Connor has 575 attorneys in 21 offices in the U.S.,
London and Toronto.

Moves

King & Spalding adds IP Transactions Lawyer in Silicon Valley

Emma Maconick, who specializes in complex intellectual
property licensing and technology transactions, joined King &
Spalding LLP’s Silicon Valley office as a partner in the firm’s
corporate group. She joins the firm from Davis Polk & Wardell
LLP, the firm said.

Baker & McKenzie Hires International Tax Planning Attorney

Barrage, who joins the tax practice, has experience
advising multinational companies and individuals operating and
investing in the U.S. on a range of international tax issues,
including restructuring, IP migration, supply-chain planning, e-commerce, repatriation planning, and pre- and post-acquisition
planning.

Baker & McKenzie’s global tax group has a worldwide team of
more than 750 tax practitioners, economists and financial
analysts in 41 countries. The firm has more than 4,000 locally
qualified lawyers in 71 offices in 44 countries.

General Counsel

TMX Group Says Alpha CEO Jos Schmitt to Leave Company

TMX Group Ltd. said the chief executive officer and general
counsel of its Alpha Group unit is leaving next month, as the
exchange owner works to integrate its former competitor after a
takeover.

Jos Schmitt, who started the rival platform almost four
years ago, will leave by Oct. 31, Toronto-based TMX said in a
statement. Randee Pavalow, Alpha’s chief listings officer and
general counsel, will also leave.

TMX and Alpha have been “actively engaged” in integration
planning since Aug. 1, when a group led by banks and pension
funds bought Alpha and Canadian Depository for Securities Ltd.
to combine with its C$3.73 billion
($3.8 billion) takeover of TMX, according to the statement.

Alpha began in November 2008 as an alternative trading
platform and evolved to become a full-fledged stock exchange
earlier this year, with about 17 percent of the Canadian market
for trading. TMX CEO Thomas Kloet said in a Sept. 12 interview
that Alpha has a future under the Toronto Stock Exchange owner.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Elizabeth Amon in Brooklyn, New York, at
eamon2@bloomberg.net.